She didn’t have to do this, yet, nevertheless, she persisted. That’s the refrain bopping in my head as I go through Anna Banana’s past, looking to shed any more light behind the creation of this album: 大きな絵 (Big Picture). It’s about a hafu (and worse, a nisei), barely making any kind of ascent into stardom, going out on a limb to go where few of her fans expected. Nevertheless, here we are, looking back, at this marking the turning point charting a different kind of ascent.
Anna Banana was born Anna Demeo in the mid ‘60s in Santa Monica, California. The daughter of a first-generation Japanese-American mother and an Italian-American father, Anna grew up trying to navigate the waters many mixed race kids have to chart. Although her mother’s side had long ties to Japan she still had this other side to her that she refused to stop exploring either. While studying at University of California-Berkeley, Anna was presented with an opportunity: pursue a career in modeling – the only catch: it would have to be in Japan.
At that time Anna had grown up well-versed in music and fine arts. To merely cash in on her looks, appeared to gauche. When she ventured to Japan it had to offer more than this pursuit. Anna’s love of music, dance, and acting would remain active outlets she refused to give up.
In Tokyo, Anna Demeo fell into the Shibuya fashion scene where her work as a model could present the perfect stand-in to represent a younger, “modern”, more multicultural Japanese generation. Yet, as modeling paid the bills, Anna had demos of music she wanted to share with others. When the opportunity presented itself to her she signed with Warner Bros and a new phase in her life began.
Going by the name Anna Banana, a likely play on the moniker many half-asian, half-white Asian kids dub themselves – yellow on the outside, white on the inside – Anna was now a young singer-songwriter who, I imagine, label heads had some semblance of jettisoning to stardom. The funny thing is that from the beginning, Anna understood that many would latch onto the “exoticness” of her being (for better or worse). So, from the get-go, Anna knew she had to take ownership of her own self.
Under the WB’s Sixty Records imprint, Anna’s debut album (1989’s Banana Hill) appeared to have tonal and sonic touches that explored some of what label-mate, Yukako Hayase, had begun to do in her own music. Together with composer/arranger, Yoshimasa Inoue, who’s own work with Kyoko Koizumi had allowed her to explore more cutting-edge underground sounds, so too did Anna’s own co-authorship allow her to tread territory that other, more established native Japanese musicians might not easily tread on.
Such is the blessing/curse of being a new-generation, foreign-born, immigrant, that what one is used to expressing freely in one’s homeland, might seem alien to those born just experiencing it. Anna, on screen, in person, just couldn’t help but be different. Gregarious, speaking with a “country” accent, and quite playful, in spite of neither of her two singles charting, Japanese audiences were aware that Anna could be that new, special, talent – a kind of Japanese Neneh Cherry.
Anna’s sophomore release, 1990’s Sing Selah would mark a turning point for her, commercially. Working alongside hit Japanese producers like Carlos Kanno, Yasuaki Maejima, and Yasuo Higuchi, now Anna and Yoshimasa aimed to create music that hit for the rafters, that could be heard on the radio. One track that was a hold out from a prior single created buzz by appearing in a James Bond advert, Ka・Chi・Kan. However, few knew that on this record Anna would begin to take the reins of her own music.
Seemingly on a latin dance pop kick, Anna’s self-penned songs like the title track became barn burners working their way up Japanese music charts. Now, she was able to go out and tour, release music videos and (generally) find a way to carve out a place for herself in Japanese mass culture. Likewise, she parlayed her stardom to acting roles on film and screen. Yet, nevertheless, she persisted elsewhere.
In 1991, Anna was looking to branch out creatively. Before this album was created, an early single with the incomparable Hiromi Go dubbed “Garden Of Love” showed new inspiration. Perhaps inspired by the burgeoning underground dance scene and America’s New Jack Swing urban soul music, Anna’s new shift in sound was more mature, multilayered, and sophisticated. Few realized that at this moment she was already ready to move into a new direction.
On the 大きな絵 (Big Picture) she’d enlist the help of little-known pioneering Japanese techno and acid house producers Atom (aka DJ Wada and Heigo Tani) to flesh out tons of new songs she’d be writing using various samplers and synths. In a way, playing the role of William Orbit to her Madonna, this would be Anna’s forward-thinking reimagining of her own trajectory as an artist.
As you can imagine, with 8 out of the album’s 12 tracks clocking in over five minutes long, radio airplay wasn’t what they were aiming for. Songs like opening track “○×△◇・・・（ピンタサンキサィヤレ）” were sprawling, longform ideas that were looking at creating a, no pun intended, bigger picture. Bits from Africa, others from Italian pop, gorgeous ideas from hip-hop and downtempo scenes, all was fair play in Anna’s world.
Featuring her first songs sung in English and Janglish (a mix of both her birthplace and then, adopted, home) would be impressively commanding with myriad melodies touching all sorts of emotion. For every upbeat, earworm like “Bamboula (English Version)” there would be a deep J-soul cut like “鳥” that anyone in the Western urban soul scene would have killed to write. That looseness, self-assuredness, that allowed Anna to simply let the tracks unfurl as long as they needed to allowed each track to have its timeless charm.
Two covers, one of Carly Simon’s “Let The River” and the other of Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” absolutely transform the originals in ways their authors would have surely admired, as dancefloor fillers worthy of a new generation of club kids to rework. Other songs like the live strummer “Here N’ Now” aren’t afraid to show her newfound range and phrasing as a singer. At last proving that Anna definitively sounds like she’s found her voice and complete focus.
This deep intention will drive atmospheric ambient pop ballads like the title track, expressing a side we’ve little heard before in her music. 大きな絵 (Big Picture) just shines with myriad ways it predicts a future sound that few would think Anna could divine. Songs like “Follow Me” feel like they were investing in the sound of Brixton – a trippy version of rap-influenced overground pop. It’s in the jaw-dropping beat-driven, textural, music of “Neptune” and “男の子 女の子” that one sorts of sees why few would understand or reward Anna for going there. There are no prophets in their own land.
And like those looking to build bridges between many lands, we all have to (inevitably) land somewhere, if not momentarily. Anna would go on to go deeper in one direction or more directions on her following albums but for me this is where no one – and I do mean no one – could have told you where that direction was. A fitting beginning for a new artist that definitely needs another introduction. Stepping back certainly does reveal the bigger picture.